Suzanne Nelson was raised just outside of San Francisco. A Stanford grad and varsity runner, she heads to New York City for law school. She is gay, but has come out to no one. In New York she meets Kerry Neally, a New Yorker and fellow student. Who is straight. First in a study group and then as a pair, they find themselves become attached to one another. And have to work out that Kerry thinks she's straight. Eileen is Kerry's mother. She is a widow, and meeting Suzanne helps her leave the shell into which she placed herself after her husband died. And she comes to the attention of two men. One a widower. The other divorced. And love intevenes for her choice. With Suzanne settled into her New York life, she turns her back on her parents, who turned their backs on Suzanne's aunt Mary, a gay woman disowned by her parents and brother decades before. She, too, lives in New York and she and Eileen attempt to get Suzanne's parents to understand their daughter. Kate Nelson comes to New York to reason with her daughter. As eventually does William, her father. The story is about how the members of what becomes a large New York family deal with themselves, each other, and love.

The Neallys

After throwing their cups away, they headed west. Fall was in the air, and it started to get chilly so they quickened their pace. When they got to her apartment building, she very much wanted to ask him up and he very much wanted to be asked up. But she had promised the kids to ease off and after a “thank you, Simon, I had a wonderful time” and a kiss on the cheek, he watched her enter the building. Alone.


Until that moment, Simon was certain that he would shortly be in her bed. As he walked to the garage where he parked, he replayed the day. He’d not put a foot wrong. His was not a calculated performance but one that was natural and he thought that the natural result would be holding her again. He lost Eileen to Tom and he feared losing Kate to…another man who was not him.


Chapter 81